Electronic program guide (EPG) is an interactive presentation tool using an electronic device such as a computer to present information to users. For example, for television, EPG is an interactive toll that allows users to view the complete list of the TV channels and radio stations, to have the grids of programs of the channels over a certain amount of hours, and to select the programs according to the channel and the schedules to view more details about the selected programs. The traditional EPG for television displays listing of the most general information about the programs, for example, listing the title, time and channel of the shows.
Often users are interested in learning of more detail of a particular show or shows than the information initially listed. Under the current art, to enable the users to view more details for the particular show, the particular EPG product has a feature that lets the users select the particular show and the EPG opens a separate viewing page that presents more detail information for this particular show. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,020,880 and 5,541,738. The current EPG products for television involve changing viewing context between an initial program lineup and a detailed presentation of the information regarding a specific show. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,020,880.
Under the current art, the detailed information is presented on a different page. The current art thus involves multiple views (or web pages in cases where the EPG is run from a web browser) and requires the user to switch back and forth between the program listings and the program information. The switching back and forth between the program listings and the program detailed information forces the user to mentally track the relationship of the current page or show to the rest of the programming schedule while in the detail view. Transitions between the details and overview presentation of the traditional EPG presentations are discontinuous and incur a greater mental effort to track the relationship between the two states. The traditional EPG presentation also does not facilitate simultaneous viewing of more than one detailed program view.
There is thus a desire for viewing for categorical information such as television show listings that does not require switch back and forth from the program listings page to the detailed information pages of particular selected programs.